We recently received some new toys and, unfortunately, have had opportunities to break them as we break them in.

The new guys show off the MRAP's increased passenger capacity.

The Afghan National Police mentor team and the Afghan National Army embedded training team each received two MRAPs each.

The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles, as the name implies, are meant to be safer than the up-armored Humvees against both mines and ambushes. Though we are leaving, I got to spend some time as a truck commander, a driver and a gunner in the new vehicle.

The MRAPs have had a good track record in Iraq over the last several months and they have started arriving downrange in Afghanistan.

We lost one of ours when it broke down during a trip to Kabul. We have since learned that is a preferable way to lose one.

An MRAP gunner is the high life.

Earlier this week, one of our teams was hit with an ambush after doing a humanitarian assistance visit to a district. The MRAP was shot up with rifle fire and rocket-propelled grenades but nothing that couldn't be fixed. None of our soldiers were hurt in the attack and were able to take out several of the bad guys.

The next day, the same guys took that repaired MRAP and one we borrowed from the ANA ETTs to Waghez district. As I've mentioned before, Waghez is where we get hit with an IED more often than not.

We had requested a route clearance package but it was denied. The new guys decided to roll without it, feeling somewhat secure with the MRAP.

The MRAP takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'.

On their way back from the district center, they hit an IED. The MRAP(the one we had borrowed from the ETTs) took the impact, losing a couple of wheels. A firefight with the enemy followed, doing some damage to the other MRAP. The immobile mammoth vehicle was eventually recovered and all of the guys made it back to FOB Vulcan safely.

We are probably the first team in Afghanistan to verify the MRAP lives up to its name - it is both mine resistant and ambush protected. I'm sure the new guys were not counting on being guinea pigs.

Let's hope that ends their enemy contact for a while and they can be more about the business of building up the Afghan National Police. Then the whole country can become mine resistant and ambush protected.